Nada, Zip, Zilch

Zilch is a cool new game I encountered recently in Kongregate.

The games is nicely designed, simple to play and very addictive. Very useful if you feel like killing some time in the office, or just have some fun. All you need is a bit of luck and a bit of strategy. Enjoy!

Bored at Work? Build a Gun!

Well, sort of a gun, anyway:

Best Hosting Plan EVER: Unlimited Domains, Unlimited Disk Space, Unlimited Data Transfer. Check it out!

Tons of Fun at Kinner.net 2008

Kinner.net is a special event that takes place once a year, on the shore of the Kinneret - the sea of Galilee.

250 nerds, geeks and other creative people are invited to this happening, and they spend their time doing many cool, weird, freaky, funny and tasty stuff.

This was my first year in Kinner.net, and I had a lot of fun. I met a lot of interesting people, ate and drank like there's no tomorrow, played Rock Band all day and all night, broke my record on Galaga and enjoyed the company of my fellow uber-geeks.

I didn't take many pictures, mainly because I was busy doing other interesting stuff, but I have some pics on my flickr set. It's been an exhausting weekend, and if that wasn't enough, now I have to deal with TheMarker's internet convention, the all-famous COM.Vention. Life's tough, I know.

Here are my pics from Kinner.net 2008 (Click to see the whole set):

www.flickr.com

MAD Magazine's Fold-Ins - Interactive Presentation

I've got stacks of MAD magazine in my house - all dusty but still very funny (mostly).

A cool part of MAD has always been the fold-in, which often depicted political and social satire.

Now, NY Times presents Al Jaffee's fold-ins, from the 1960s to the present, in interactive form.

Officepoltergeist: And Here I thought Back Orifice was Dead

The 90s were a lot of fun. All you needed to entertain yourself was a bit of viciousness, a stupid co-worker and a piece of genius-software that was called Back Orifice.

Back Orifice (and its many take-offs) was designed for remote system administration. It enables a user to control a computer running Windows from a remote location. In plain words - you install it on a person's computer and you can drive them NUTS by making their PC pop up weird error messages, open their CD tray, spy on them and even shut down their computer.

Very quickly, the anti-virus industry categorized Back Orifice as malware and added it to their quarantine lists. In other words, it will be very hard to install Back Orifice on a regular computer these days.

It appears that all hop is not lost for the script kiddies. They can try Officepoltergeist. This open-source software "allows you to take limited control of another person's computer", but the makers claim it's not Spyware, and that it "does not allow remote users to read data or execute potentially harmful commands".

OfficePoltergeist sets up a small server running on the victim's machine. The program, which hides in memory while it runs, waits silently for a connection on port 666. Any proper firewall should be able to prevent its use, but hey - not everybody uses a firewall!

Downloads:

OfficePoltergeist Controller - controls the poltergeist

OfficePoltergeist Server - runs on the victim's machine

mem86control.exe - same as above, only named something clever to evade detection

Have fun, you evil bastards :)

The Zombies are Back! Boxhead has a New Game

If you planned to get some work done during the weekend, you might as well forget about it.

Boxhead released a new game - Boxhead: The Zombie Wars. If you ever played one of their previous zombie games, you know how addictive and violent they could get. Violent in taking away your time, that is.

Things are a bit more complicated in this new game, which involves new enemies, new weapons and a whole new barricade-mode game. It's not easy. It's fast-moving and full of action. It's going to kill my weekend and I have a lot of things to do!!!

Damn :)

100 Retro Nintendo Games You can Play Online For Free

The days of the 8-bit were the best. Zelda kept us busy for hours, years before anyone thought up the weird name Wii. There were also Mario Bros., of course, and many more games.

For those of you who don't know it yet - you don't really need a Nintendo console anymore. If you wanna play one of the cool retro Nintendo games, all you have to do is click here - and get 100 Nintnedo Games you can play online - for free!

Have fun!!!

Destroy the Sites you Hate

There are sites that can really annoy the crap out of you. I'm sure you all have sites you hate.

Netdisaster has a cool solution for you - destroy the sites you despise!

All you to do is enter the URL of your favorite hated site, choose the kind of disaster you wish for it (meteors, wasp attack, floods etc.), and sit back and enjoy the mayhem.

All together now!

I love useless sites. The kind you can waste 5 minutes on, and then forget they ever existed. I suspect this will be the fate of this new site - Muxicall.

The object of this site seems to be "make some noise". You enter it, choose a user name and get access to a grid that enables you to play "music". You can choose to play the piano, strings or drums, and then you can randomly click on the buttons and have fun.

The catch is that EVERYBODY gets to do it at the same time. So, there's a lot of noise and mess, and it's quite amusing. Rather like hearing the neighbors' son practicing on his piano - only you get to make some noise in return.

Yet another "collaborative" site that will vanish in the blink of an eye. Have fun, that's all that matters.

>> Get some real music

Hilarious Human Tetris

These guys also created human Space Invaders and human Pong - you can see it here.

The World's Biggest Etch-a-Sketch

This is really amusing: the world's biggest Etch-a-Sketch, that lets 3,000 people doodle and sketch at the same time.

This huge gadget is controlled by using two-sided paddles that signal sensor cameras, letting one side of the audience control the right knob and the other side control the left knob. The fun never ends.

If you want to sketch, but have no device, you can do it online - here (use the keyboard arrows).

The Best Addictive Flash Games

CNET has published a list of The Ten Most Addictive Flash Games, in their opinion.

Their list is as follows:

1. Bejeweled
2. Chimgan (WTF?!)
3. Bow Man
4. Desktop Tower Defense
5. Hasee Bounce (Neopets)
6. Line Rider
7. The Last Stand
8. Portal
9. The Helicopter Game
10. Yeti Sports

While I agree with some of CNET's nominations, I would like to add some of my own:

1. Chuzzle - Basically, anything that PopCap makes is well done and addictive. Chuzzle wasted huge amounts of my spare and not-so-spare time, and I still play it from time to time.
2. Zuma - see above :)
3. CastleWars - the main advantage of this game is the ability to play it with interruptions. You can stop at any given moment, pretend to do some work, and then go back to it without losing a move. Kongregate's chat room adds to the fun.
4. Sushi Go-Round - This is truly dangerous. No only is this game highly addictive, it also hurts your mouse hand and gives you horrific Sushi craves.
5. Maganic Wars - Another war-of-cards game - not as simple as it looks, can be very frustrating and guaranteed to waste hours of your time.
6. Boxhead 2 - Oh, yeah. Just try it.

The Surprise of Stardust

It's been a while since I have seen a really good movie. I go to the cinema almost every week, sometimes twice a week, but if you ask me "When was the last time you saw a really good movie", I'll have a hard time remembering.

I loved Borat and Hairspray, Transformers was pretty cool... And that's about it. Since Lord of the Rings, I can't recall a movie that really left an impression, or that made me want to see it again.

It's getting worse when talking about sci-fi and fantasy movies. The choices there are slim to begin with, and the performance is lame, most of the time. Eragon and Bridge to Terabithia are just two examples of shallow, unimpressive movies.

That's why I went to see Stardust with very few expectations. The very impressive cast (Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sienna Miller, Charlie Cox etc.) only made me even more suspicious. Such an amount of heavy hitters is usually a recipe for failure (Shh, don't say "Kingdom of Heaven", ok?).

Actually, I didn't hear a thing about this movie until I saw that there's a screening of it in one of our local theaters. Which was also weird - I see a lot of trailers online and in the cinema, and I didn't recall seeing anything about Stardust.

The bottom line is that it's always good to have low expectations. Stardust really caught me by surprise - and I enjoyed it immensely. It's a fun movie, that doesn't take itself very seriously and has a lovely storyline, full of action and humor. The actors are excellent. De Niro gives a hilarious performance (I won't spoil it for you - I'll just say he's not what he seems at first), Pfeiffer plays a wonderful evil witch and Charlie Cox gives the fresh and young touch. I am not much of a fan of Claire Danes, but she wasn't all bad, either.

The plot isn't all that sophisticated: "In a countryside town bordering on a magical land, a young man makes a promise to his beloved that he'll retrieve a fallen star by venturing into the magical realm". Your basic Quest-For-Love kind of thing. It's not about CGI and special effects, either, but mostly about the humor, the fun and the lightness of it all.

Mostly it reminded me of The Princess Bride, which became a real cult movie over the years. Stardust isn't an epic of the kind of LOTR, but it's a movie I would love to see again - if only for the wittiness and De Niro's performance.

Seven Days of Sun, Sea and Scuba

I have been an avid Scuba Diver for the past 15 years. The sea and its mysteries have always fascinated me. When I was about 10 years old, my father took me to Taba, Sinai, and sent me out with an instructor for an intro-dive. It was an amazing experience, and I was hooked for life. The minute I stepped out of the water I knew - I wanna do THIS!

I waited impatiently until I was 15 and was allowed to undergo a diving course. Got my 2 stars and started diving like a dehydrated fish. I enjoyed almost every dive, no matter the conditions or the amount of fish and corals visible.

Lately I haven't been diving nearly enough. Work, life and excuses - you know the drill. That's why I have decided on a week-long vacation of nothing BUT diving. Courtesy of Mr. Ilan Vered and the lovely SeaQueen 1, I had one of the best weeks of my life - Seven days of Sun, Sea and Scuba in the southern parts of Egypt.

The dives were nothing short than amazing. We managed 3-4 dives per day, including some very cool night dives. My two personal favorites were Panorama Reef and Jackfish Alley. Panorama is wonderfully rich and full of life. The reef is very healthy, the visibility was very good and it felt like swimming inside a dream.

Elphinstone presented very interesting and challenging dives. Some of the people saw sharks, but I didn't manage a glance at these amazing creatures. I saw one shark, White-Tip, small and sleeping, in a cave in Abu-Dabab reef. That was actually good enough for me... I suppose that the fact that I have never dived in Egypt or Sinai before (except for that intro, 20 years ago), added a lot to the fun element. Everything was new to me.

Jackfish Alley was the last dive on the last day, and it was truly the best way to end this fantastic journey. I officially declare it the sweetest dive I have ever experienced. Thanks to Amir Gur, our wonderful and super-professional Instructor, we got to dive through a special cave, which was a very unique experience.

This little post doesn't do any justice to this cool vacation. Some of my amateurish pictures in flickr might help to convey my impressions better, but nothing can REALLY describe the glorious feeling of freedom, nature, beauty and peacefulness.

To add to the fun, the people that were on board the ship were very cool and fun to be with. The instructors were very good and friendly, and the crew gave us 5-star service.

I hope to do this again soon. To top everything else, I got to seriously practice my underwater photography skills (Thanks again, Amir, for the tips and advice) - and I finally managed to get some reasonable pictures:

Well, I guess it's back to work now. It ain't easy getting back to the day-to-day routine, let me tell you. I really miss the sun, the diving and the company. Until next time - the sea will remain in my dreams.

Fatboy Frogger - Flash Game

Have Fun!

The Internet in 1993

One of my favorite activities is indulging in computer nostalgia. Along with keeping up with the hottest, newest developments on the internet and in the computer industry, I boldly claim that the Apple ][e was the best PC ever made, I enjoy emulators very much and I miss the BBS days.

So, it was a great pleasure to encounter this particular video, which shows a news report about the Internet, way back in 1993. I must admit I wasn't connected to the internet in 1993. I was still struggling with busy BBS lines, chatting with 3-4 people maximum on the same time, and downloading files at 0.9 KB/s. Still, I was ONLINE, and it's wonderful to look back and see how it was 14 years ago.

Some of the things changed dramatically, but a lot stayed unchanged - we still chat and socialize, we download files and the trolls and flamers are still out there, in full force.

Enjoy:

The Internet In 1993 - Watch more free videos

Not Pandora, but Very Cool

I just discovered this site: SeeqPod. You can search for music, and create an instant playlist. The results are very good and varied - I am listening to it right now and having a lot of fun.

Here is my current playlist:


SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search

Ever since Pandora has closed its gates to non-US users, I have been looking for a cool music site to listen to while I'm working on the computer (which is most of the day, really). I have tried finetune and was bored quickly; Last.fm simply wasn't fun; and recently I ventured into MeeMix, which is supposed to guess your musical taste - but fails miserably.

SeeqPod isn't pretentious. It's simple, straight-forward and very fast. I typed in "Blackalicious" and got a myriad of songs that I love. Easy, quick and efficient - the way these things are supposed to be.

The "Discover" Button also allows for variation, and gives an opportunity to find music you don't know yet.

Cool site, I like it.